天下制覇

Plot was moving way too fast for about two minutes at the end of last week. Need some breathing space.

Impressions:

If I'm understanding the Evil Empire's plan correctly, it was to ambush a civilian target in the middle of a city containing basically all of the VIPs helpfully gathered in one location for about two minutes, then declare war, then leave. So it's a really good thing they said that was totally just a distraction, despite containing all their best pilots and no doubt 95% of their named characters we're ever going to see. Otherwise, it'd come across as stupid. And if you think I'm harping on something that was mostly laid out at the end last week, it's because most the first half of this episode was spent harping on that. Oh, and all the future casting couch dwellers using their magical pop star powers to talk about how they could hear a castrati wailing during it. It's so mysterious and mysterious and mysterious… and it was a boy too. Let's all stand around pondering that for a few more minutes.

And yet, things might have been arguably worse in the second half. Let's just save some time and cut right to the fact that it ended with yet another CD song advertisement and everybody being yelled at for breaking the rules. Yet again. If you want to play at being the big bad regimented air force or the weight of war like the start of the second half wouldn't shut up about or whatever, that's fine. Preferable even. But week after week of impotently shaking your fist at those wascally teenagers taking out your trillion dollar military mecha to flirt and dance doesn't mesh with that. Pick one, drop the other, and for god's sake, let's move past "wringing their hands until suddenly they feel better to an insert song." Every single episode cannot go like that, especially when there is absolutely no content to the episode otherwise. And even calling that content is stretching it.